Tales of the Cocktail

After seven years at Pegu Club, Kenta opened Bar Goto in Manhattan in 2015, followed by Bar Goto Niban in Brooklyn in 2020.

Bar Goto has twice been semifinalist for James Beard's Outstanding Bar Program, Bon Appétit's Bar of the Year award, and among other accolades, he was named US Bartender of the Year at Tales of the Cocktail.

These guys are both friends, and we're pleased to have them on the show to talk about, among other things, their beautiful new book, which drops today, The Goto Bartender's Guide.

Hey, that's some good stuff, guys.

All right, well let's get into what we're really here to talk about, which is, you know, uh, you mostly.

Um, and there was a debate this summer we had at Tales of the Cocktail where like, is hospitality show business and is bartending acting? That, that, you know, that whole like when you're bartending you're on stage thing keeps coming up, and so it makes me wanna ask you like when you're making cocktails for your videos and stuff like that, or even when you're behind the bar at Subject where we work together sometimes, uh, are you playing a character? Is that Nick Hamilton or is that Nick the bartender character?

It's definitely a heightened version of myself.

I'd say the same for my videos.

Yeah.

Um, and, and we're good friends with them as well.

They sponsored one of our episodes at "Tales of the Cocktail"-

Mm

Yes.

I mean, it seems to be just literally took Tales of the Cocktail by storm last year.

Yep.

And, uh, you know, everybody's talking about it.

...

the global cocktail.

Sounds like, well, if the celebration of Ajabu at Tales of the Cocktail is any indication-

Oh, yeah

When I got back, I was like, okay, this is what I want to do.

How am I going to make this happen? And I saw that Luca Gargano was giving a talk at Tales of the Cocktail.

And I was like, okay, I got to go to Tales, but I just took a week off to be in Haiti.

What do I

So how do we make what we do meaningful and relevant? And that, again, speaks to being curious, you know, what's our industry feeling? How can we as a big business, Diageo, support that bartending community who are building our brands day by day, recommendation by recommendation? What's interesting to them? How can we support their careers? A lot of that is really just being immersed in that world and loving this industry.

I'm very fortunate to be incredibly close and engaged with Tales of the Cocktail.

So I co-chair the futures track with Alex Day.

So we're lucky to be really like, you know, You know,

But I think if you're inspired by somebody, you should now be able to reach out and build that network.

you know, in the least cringe way, which is either through LinkedIn or Instagram, just kind of start building those soft connections.

And, you know, things like Tales of the Cocktail, London Cocktail Week, you know, when we're in industry moments together, everybody's effectively networking.

I mean, I've met people who are like, oh, it's so nice to see you, Claire.

Yeah.

Is, is tales of the cocktail still as big as it was in the past? Where's the size of that event now?

It's huge.

It's certainly the largest cocktail conference in the world, I would say.